Saturday, January 30, 2016

When Nikon chose a seemingly well-timed photograph to win one of their Nikon trolley bag, they probably didn't really thought much about it. After all, it's an ongoing campaign where they feature and reward good photos taken using a Nikon camera. What they probably didn't expect was that the photo was doctored in order to win the prize. Here's the photo with the caption:

If you look closely, you'll be able to spot a white box around the plane, meaning that this Yu Wei photoshopped the plane in instead of actually capturing the plane. Of course, users were quick to pick out the discrepancy, and what followed was hilarious. Some of my favourites, with their captions:

Speaking from a social media perspective, this may constitute some sort of PR crisis for Nikon, where there is definitely an urgent need to do damage control. One way out of this is for Nikon to admit their mistake ("Sorry everyone, in our eagerness to reward fellow Nikon users with trolley bag, we've been TROLLED") and then to turn it positive by rewarding all those who have submitted their version of the photoshopped pictures.

That way, your fans all end up happy and you don't end up looking too bad by putting up a wall of silence. After all, it's okay to laugh at yourself occasionally. It makes your relationship more personal with your users.